


Twice Blessed

by Anoriath



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Paperwork, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:25:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoriath/pseuds/Anoriath
Summary: They say, “write what you know.”  Apparently, I know a lot about paperwork, crunching numbers, and fighting off sleep to get it done.This is a bit of domestic fluff, set soon after the events in Chapter 23 in No Man's Child.  It spoils no plot points, is completely unrelated to anything happening in the story itself, but does spoil the status of Aragorn and Nienelen’s relationship.





	Twice Blessed

_'Thus we meet again, though all the hosts of Mordor lay between us,” said Aragorn. ‘Did I not say so at the Hornburg?’_

_‘So you spoke,’ said Eomer, ‘but hope oft deceives, and I knew not then that you were a man foresighted. Yet twice blessed is help unlooked for’_

ROTK: The Battle of Pellenor Fields

~oOo~

Sixteen of rye, twenty of oat, and but three of wheat, for the lower fields had flooded again, and Master Heledhon had not heeded Herdir’s advice and failed to plant his wheat upon the headlands. ‘Twas of his own choice, but not just he shall suffer for it. Five children he has, as well as maiden sister, his brother’s widowed wife, and his parents in his household. Should we not find other work for them, I am unsure what else the Angle might do for their betterment. 

Thank the Valar we have a surplus of beans and pease. They may have little bread, but they will not want for aught to eat. I no longer need so much of the work of spinning and weaving to make blankets and the gathering of rushes to make mats now the flow of wanderers slows a little. But, the work of husbandry and assarting land will need more backs bent to it should we not suffer for want of fields to plant in the spring. Very well. I shall speak to Master Herdir and get his thoughts on the matter upon the morrow. There, ‘tis done.

My lord sighs and tosses a fold of parchment to the stack that rises upon his left. There it joins other such missives; reports from his men of their movements about the lands of Eriador. For, after our even’s meal and the clearing of it, we sit across one another with the thin light of the lamp between us.

I set aside my quill and take a sip of ale as I await the drying of the ink upon my journal. His map laid out afore him, my lord juggles several stones in his palm and frowns. There they ring about the Shire and the lands upon the South Road. He has more such letters to open piled about him. Rangers Sedwyn and Gelir returned earlier in the day and with them brought a full sack of them. We had been without news for several months and my lord restless for it. 

I should build up the fire, I think, for the darkness of the hall at my back and the chill breeze that rises with the setting of the sun. My lord yawns and shakes his head sharply ere placing the stones upon his map and blinking. 

His head lifts briefly when I rise from the bench, but he remains at his task without comment as I close the shutters, rake the coals and add more kindling to the fire. He does not stop until I have poured more ale into his cup, and once done with that, seated myself on the bench at his right arm. He turns his head to watch as I look over his work, amusement softening his face.

“What think you, lady?”

“I think you shall be at it for some time, my lord.”

“Aye,” he says, his voice wry, returning to looking o’er his map. “You have the right of it, there.”

“Were not Haldren and Mathil at _Amon Sûl_?”

“Aye, lady, that they were.” He frowns and circles a finger above the eastern border of Bree. “But now they are here, tracking the men who have traveled from beyond our southern border.”

“Who is there now?”

He glares at the stones set upon_ Amon Sûl_ for a moment ere sighing and combing through the stack of opened letters. 

“You do not recall it?” I ask and stare at him. ‘Tis not like him to have forgot. 

“No,” he says, his irritation clearly spoken in the sharp slip of parchment as he looks over one only to cast it aside and rummage through the rest.

He has been favoring his broken arm throughout the exercise, though no longer wears it in a sling. Even now he cannot seem to find a comfortable position in which to rest, but lifts his arm from one spot to another with a slight grimace.

I suppose my sighing and rising from the bench do little to improve his mood, but when I return I have brought my shears from among the tools in a basket at the foot of my loom and have pulled a ragged bit of parchment from among my journals. This shall do, I think. ‘Tis when I turn and reach behind us to pull open a drawer in his tall chest that my lord speaks.

“What are you about?” he asks, watching as I set several ends of old candles upon the table and take up my quill. He has given up on finding what he seeks and his men’s letters lie in a tangle upon the table about us.

“My lord, you have a very good mind for these things and seldom need the aid, but, I think, mayhap you are too weary and the material too much for any to master in one sitting.”

I slide the parchment to him and offer my quill. He peers first at the name I have written there and then my face, ere, shrugging, he takes the quill from my hand and reaches across me for the inkhorn. 

As he writes, I rise and lean o’er him to gather up the letters. By the time my lord has written the name of each of his men and the ink is dry, I am well into sorting the reports into piles by date, one week at a time.

It must be clear what I intend, for my lord then takes to unfolding the reports he had yet opened. We have been at it for some time, working silently beside and reaching across the other when he snorts and offers his latest letter to me.

When I look at it, it is to find there is no date written therein, neither at the top margin nor is there signature at the bottom.

“Melethron,” he says to my querying look. No doubt he recognizes the hand upon it. 

“Well,” I say, “we shall have to leave it until we can judge it by somewhat else we know.”

“Aye,” he says and pulls the parchment from my hands and places it off to the side.

I am done with sorting those letters already opened and take the shears to the parchment. With great care, I cut my lord’s men’s names into small slips. My lord frowns at me from where he is still unfolding the letters. He glances at me between skimming through their contents and placing them in their piles. 

Yet ‘tis not until I swipe at the stones and gather them into a cluster at the edge of the map that he speaks.

“Lady!” he cries in some alarm, his brows rising.

“Did you recall which men were where, my lord?”

It seems he struggles with some measure of his pride, for my lord does not respond for a moment, but looks from me to the clutter of stones. 

“No,” he admits at last with somewhat of a sour look. He tosses the final letter upon a pile with its mates. 

He watches as I snip at the parchment with some interest, his arm propped upon the table and fingers playing idly upon the short hairs below his lip. He lets loose a soft grunt when I warm the end of a candle butt in the flame of the lamp. I think then he has caught on to the idea, for he leans forward in his chair and takes up a bit of wax to join me. It takes some effort, for the timing and amount must be just right, else the slips of parchment shall not attach securely to the stones. 

“Shall I tell you where,” I ask when done, and reach for the first pile of letters, “or do you wish –"

My lord shakes his head and takes them from under my hand. “Here,” he says, picking out two of the stones and sliding them afore me. 

“Haldren and Mathil in _Amon Sûl_,” he says, and I push them into place over the great watchtowers of old to the north. 

The map lies spread afore my lord’s chair and so, without knowing it, I have come in close and placed my hand upon the back of his shoulder and neck the better to reach across him. He seems much occupied by the contents of the letter, reading it swiftly to himself ere moving on to the next and does not seem to mind. So we proceed. 

Once done, my lord leans in close over the table, clutching his jaw in his hand and peering closely o’er the map as were he committing it to memory. His eyes flick from stone to stone, taking them in with his keen gaze. He nods.

“I am ready,” he says and sits up straighter. We take up the next pile of letters and do much the same with them.

We have gotten through the fourth pile of letters when he halts for a long moment, scratching at his beard and considering the map.

“There is somewhat amiss,” he says at last, but, I am afraid, in my growing need for sleep, my thoughts are not as sharp and I have lost the thread of his men and their movements. I know not how he has kept track of them at this point.

“Would Melethron’s undated letter be of help?” I ask and his head jerks up from where he has rested it upon his fist.

He shrugs after reading it and passes it on to me. 

No, the contents make little sense given what I see on the table. So much for that. He has returned to considering his map as I read, but his face turns of sudden to me. It seems I had yawned and attempted to hide it behind the letter. 

“Ah,” he says, sitting straight to stretch his neck and shoulders. “Forgive me, lady, I have kept you overlong from your sleep.”

“Go to bed,” he urges low when he has settled and I yet make no move to go. “Your own work is done. You should not also be burdened with mine.” 

“Are you certain?” I ask and he smiles softly upon me in response. 

When I slip my hand from behind his neck he catches it in his. “_My thanks to thee_,” he says and presses a soft kiss to my knuckles ere he releases me.

There, for the first I have known him, he suffers me to run my fingertips upon his brow and cheek and the hair that lays upon them without losing the fondness that softens his look upon me.

“Do you wish for aught ere I go?” I ask, my hand lighting upon his shoulder. His own weariness is plain to see in the slump of his shoulders and softness of skin about his eyes. 

He shakes his head. “I think I have it now,” he says and then continues when I do not rise and leave him there. “Be at ease, lady. I shall do just enough so it is no longer a risk to my sleep.” 

Indeed, it would not be the first somewhat occurred to him in the middle of the night and he rose from our bed, took up the breeches he had laid across the low chest, and crept down the risers to the hall in the dark. There he would light a lamp and pour over his work. He took great care to leave me undisturbed and I knew these times only for the evidence of it upon the table when I awoke the next morn. Though I doubt not his kinsman asleep on the settle in the hall would grumble and yank his pillow from beneath his head so he might lay it o’er his face and return to sleep. So he would do now, were he here and not securing the Last Bridge along the East Road.

My lord’s kiss is gentle; a mere brush of lips and then gone. 

“To bed,” he says as I blink at him. “I shall join you in a little.”

And so I left him. There he sat at his table, lit as he was in the small circle of light of the lamp and the fire of the hearth burning low. The last I saw ere I set my feet upon the stairs, he had taken up the pile of letters and, leaning against the back of his chair, puzzled more intently over their contents and drank from his cup of ale. 

Despite his promise, ‘twas much later, when the moon rose o’er the meadow and shown her light silver through the trees and lit in thin stripes upon the solar floor, that he came to bed. He took care to make little noise and slipped beneath the covers without shaking the bed. But it was his body lying heavily upon the mattress that woke me.

I think he must have caught my thoughts easily for my look, for he shook his head when I turned to him. He had not discovered what had given him unease. ‘Twas sure to make for a restless night’s sleep for him. 

His look grew puzzled when I then turned to my back and lifted the covers, only to raise his brows of a sudden in surprise when I slipped my arm beneath his neck where he had lifted his head to look upon me. 

“You are sure I am not too great a weight for your own sleep?” asked he.

“Nay, my lord.” For the weight of his body was not a burden. Indeed, the feel of his body lying upon mine and pressing me to the mattress was most oft a comfort and I rested the better for it.

I am unsure what thoughts troubled him at that moment, but, soon, he had laid his head upon my shoulder and, pressed to my side, wrapped his arm about waist and back, his leg twined between mine. There he lay still, his eyes yet open, as I brushed the hair from his brow. But it was when my fingers scratched lightly upon his scalp that his eyes fell shut beneath their own weight, and he grew lax and his breathing slowed. Then, warm and secured beneath his weight, I, too, slept. 

~oOo~


End file.
